But in the detail of these larger species an important difference was established.
The silver gulden had hitherto been equal to the gold gulden. The actual specie silver gulden in pieces of the time was nominally equivalent to 60 kreutzers. But since 1551 there had been minted a Reichs gulden in specie equal to 72 kreutzers.
In order to mark the difference it was determined to coin in future only silver gulden = 60 kreutzers, while the gold gulden was put at 75 kreutzers.
The specie authorised by this third Imperial Ordinance therefore were—
1. Gold gulden, 72 to mark, 18 1⁄2-carat fine, to equal 75 kreutzers.
2. Silver Reichs gulden, 9 1⁄2 to the mark, 14 loth 16 grs. fine, to equal 60 kreutzers.
3. Thaler, or 72 kreutzers silver gulden, to be discontinued.
4. Kreutzer, to equal 1⁄80 gulden, 243 1⁄2 to the mark, 6 loth 4 grs. fine (= 626 1⁄7 to the mark fine).
5. Reichs groschen, to equal 1⁄24 gulden, 8 loth fine, 108 1⁄2 to the mark; and a few other species.
The lower denominations (pfennige and heller) were minted on the basis of the mark = 11 florins 5 kreutzers.
Almost immediately, protestations were raised against this ordinance, especially by the Lower Westphalian Circle, and it remained quite inoperative. The succeeding Reichstag at Augsburg again authorised the issue of the thaler (8 to the mark, 14 loth 4 grs. fine, so that the fine mark = 10 florins 12 kreutzers).
As late as the Reichstag of Regensburg (1594) desultory attempts were made to establish a uniform system, but all practical idea of it had long ceased, and
the regulation of Mint matters henceforth fell into the separate jurisdiction of the various Circles. The Lower Circles went their own way at their meetings at Cologne (1566, 1572, and 1582), as did the Upper Circles in their separate meetings in 1564 and 1572 at Nördlingen and Nürnberg.